


Between us, there is a hidden promise that is just waiting for its moment

by muffin_reverie



Series: Catalyst defined in a relationship [7]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 12:49:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7758493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muffin_reverie/pseuds/muffin_reverie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had always made his moves in playing the long game that they have both agreed to, but with all the breakfasts and dances, art exhibitions and music, road trips and conversations – the purpose has now switched somewhere in between all of those.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between us, there is a hidden promise that is just waiting for its moment

Josh Matthews adores Maya at every spectrum of an emotion, but he loves it best when her mirth is unadulterated and blithe. They are little reminders that his every existence thrives on Maya’s presence – he may have arrived in the world three years before Maya came along, but the moment she stepped into his life, it has always been about Maya. His heart is bursting at the seams for the indescribable emotions that course through his veins everyday when it comes to Riley’s best friend.

Ever since that fateful midnight, Josh finds himself in a whirl of emotions, mostly good ones though there were the moments of confusion and dubiousness as they arrived at a new junction of their intertwined lives. The romantic relationship is the one thing they both wanted for the longest of time, years of patience and platonic gestures, but making a transition from being good friends to boyfriend-girlfriend isn’t exactly a smooth pace as they thought it would be.

Maya is never one to be obnoxiously rude, but her ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ seemed particularly stressed each time he does something for her. The upwards curve of her lips never left her features whenever Josh turned his gaze towards her, even if he hadn’t said or done anything amusing, and he even detected the ones where her smiles were strained because Josh knew Maya well enough to know her mirth or gratification would reflect in her blue orbs. She was also constantly complaisant to everything Josh suggested, something which he was terribly uncomfortable with as he wondered if he was forcing her into something disagreeable – she answered no when he asked, Josh didn’t prod further but he was subsequently careful to make suggestions that he knew she would actually like. Even her usual verbal spars and playful quips were missing from their interactions.

It wasn’t until Josh finally asked if there was something she really needed to tell him in the reason of her obvious discomfort whenever she was around him that he found out the reason to Maya’s oddity.

“It has nothing to do with you, well, maybe in a way it does.  I was just – I was trying to be perfect.” He knitted his eyebrows in confusion. “I wanted to be perfect for you. I didn't want to come off needy or too eager, but the one who’d make you happy, who’d always be cheerful and give you everything you want, and never disappointing you.” She rambled.

Realization suddenly crossed his mind and Josh took Maya’s hands in his, “Maya, you don’t have to be perfect.” He gave her a gentle smile.

“But I should be.” She argued. “You deserve that.”

“So all those times you gave in to everything I suggested, smiling at everything I do and say, they were all because you wanted to please me?”

“I want you to be happy with me.” Maya said with a dejected tone. “I really blew this one, didn’t I?”

“Maya, I’m not happy if you aren’t.” He honestly answered. “Not when you are unable to be yourself. I’m in love with Maya Hart, remember?” Gently lifting her chin to get Maya to look at him, Josh continued, “I fell in love with the you who jumped on my back to find out if I was accepted into NYU, the you who stayed with me till the library closes just so I can study, the you who played Call of Duty with me even though you had no idea what it was about in the first place, and even the you who argues me with me on a weekly basis on the merits of Honey Nut Cheerios over Froot Loops.”

“Sounds like she’s some loud, insufferable, whiny little ferret.”

He chuckled. “No, she’s Maya Hart, and I love her – every version of her. That’s what it means to be with someone, you accept them, you help them to grow, but you don’t judge and make them change if that’s not who they are.”

“So by trying to not ruin this relationship, I actually did everything that would do the exact the opposite.” Maya grunted. “I really suck at this.”

“Actually,” Josh grinned, “you’ve made me understand how much you want _us_ to work. I meant that much to you, if you were willing to go to such lengths for me.”

“I’m in it for the long game, remember?”

“We are _both_ in it for the long game.” He corrected her, and earned a grateful bear hug from his girlfriend.

While Maya tried to be perfect girlfriend, Josh attempted to be the understanding boyfriend – so much that the blonde wondered if she was a fragile antique. He hadn’t realized what he was doing until Maya brought it up when she presented Josh with a pair of tickets to an art exhibition at the Met.

“Josh, you can say no if you can’t make it.” She said with a wry look upon seeing Josh’s flustered features when she shoved the tickets in his face.

“What makes you think that I can’t go? I mean, you’ve already got the tickets and all –”

“It’s okay to say no to me every now and then.” Maya pointed out. “You have a life of your own, and it wasn’t as if I asked you before I got the tickets so you didn’t promise me anything. There’s nothing to feel bad about if you are going to reject me for this.”

“Maya, I’m not rejecting you.”

She shot him an incredulous, and almost, challenging look, “Oh really? Like the time I wanted to go to the Ed Sheeran concert but he was really not your kind of music guy, yet you went anyway because I told you Farkle had an extra ticket for you?”

Josh gave her wary look, his eyebrow raising a little as if wondering where the trail of conversation was heading to.

“Or how about the time I had that stupid argument with Shawn about him and mom moving to New England for me, and you were already dead tired at 2 a.m. but you came over anyway?” Maya began ticking off her mental list. “Or the time when I needed to find a pair of new hiking boots but you already had prior plans with Andrew? Or the one when my laptop crashed on me and I called you in frustrated tears without even remembering that you were probably still in the midst of your job interview?”

Josh bit down at his lower lip as an awkward smile appeared at his face.

“Josh, I like the fact that you are placing me first in your priorities, but I don’t appreciate you putting your life on hold for me just because we are together now.” Maya explained. “My heart’s not going to just roll over, curl up, and die, if you say no to me because you have something else planned, or if you don’t like something, or if you are simply exhausted from the day.”

“I guess I just wanted to make sure you’d always feel loved, and needed.” He confessed, feeling foolish. “I didn’t want you to ever think that you are not important, that your preferences and problems don’t matter to me, because they do.”

She had smiled, almost laughing because really – there was no reason for her to be angry with someone who had her best interests at heart. Maya leaned close and placed a kiss on his right cheek, “Thank you, and I love you for that, Joshua Matthews. But please don’t over-compromise yourself for me.”

These little trials and errors help to find themselves in a healthy and functional relationship – and Josh discovers that making _them_ work isn’t really hard especially when he already loves the girl on the opposite side. He learns to let moments happen, and he collects each as a memory in his mental scrapbook – he also finds out that Maya keeps a physical box of keepsakes from their every moment together.

Their moments ranged from the day when she danced with him under the rain because they both forgot the keys to his home and his parents were out for a dinner, the afternoon when she gave him a piggyback ride because he was just too grumpy to move from his comfortable spot under the tree, the late hours of the night where they observe the stars through the telescope, and even one weekend afternoon when he surprised her with a red cape and they pretended to be the neighborhood superheroes.

The last was a particular favorite as he gave her the nickname of ‘Captain Gorgeous’, while she named him ‘Captain Cheesy’, and they spent hours helping anyone they thought could use a hand – buying an ice cream for a little girl, helping an elderly man with his groceries, offering to watch over a toddler while the mother fussed over her crying baby, feeding the pigeons, and even walking the pet dog belonging to one of Riley’s neighbors.

So when Maya is about to begin her first day at university, and he’d be off making his mark in the working world, Josh presents Maya with a vintage ring encrusted with a blue sapphire gemstone and surrounded by a halo of little rhinestones to accompany the one she already has from Riley.

“Please tell me you’re not proposing to me.” Maya teases, all while holding tightly onto the ring in her fingers.

“You don’t want me to?” He fakes a look of aghast.

“Can I tell you a secret?” She whispers.

“Yeah?” He breathes out, anticipating.

“I think my heart just fluttered into its own delusional fantasy.” Maya sheepishly says.

Josh laughs with her. “I don’t think it’s delusional.”

Her blue eyes turn hopeful. “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, Matthews.”

“Give us a few years. This ring, well, it’s similar to a promise ring.”

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll see where life and the universe take us to.”

“Any idea where we will get to?”

“I’m pretty confident I’ll still find myself holding you in my arms like this,” Josh assertively answers, “and I’ll still be able to do this.” With his words, Josh seeks her lips. His adrenaline pulses in his veins, and his senses are finely attuned to Maya’s lips on his. The palpitations of his heart are thunderous, while his mind files in the group of sensory and stimuli responding to this contact as a favorite memory for years to come. Josh smiles when she pulls away, looking slightly flushed, but her blue orbs twinkles with the same bliss he feels within him.

“Are you sure about this, Josh?”

He smiles, recognizing the young girl who had once revealed her utmost fear of not being enough for anyone, and undeserving of anything. Tenderly placing both his hands on her face, Josh begins, “When I was a kid, probably about two or so, I don’t really recall my age then but I do remember Cory telling me that one day I’d have a best friend like Shawn, and I’ll meet a woman as amazing and wonderful as Topanga. I said yes to all that.” He pauses to place a kiss on her nose and then her forehead.

“I may have came into this world three years before you, and it’s probably because I was supposed to be prepared for you – for the ball of blonde confidence and fortitude, endless charms and wit, and with the most amazing of hearts as she loves. You’re the shiny sparklers, magical pixie dusts, shooting stars and wishing wells, the lucky pennies and four-leaf clovers for me.”

Maya smiles.

Josh may be only 22 and there’s a whole world of years and experience ahead for him out there, but through all the days he’s had with Maya since the moment they first met, he gradually realizes that he isn’t just in it for the long game. He had always made his moves in playing the long game that they have both agreed to, but with all the breakfasts and dances, art exhibitions and music, road trips and conversations – the purpose has now switched somewhere in between all of those.

Maya doesn’t know it yet, but Josh is looking forward to the end game with her.

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually an edit from a combination of random drabbles I've wrote along the same storyline, but those just dragged on too much and I wanted something to wrap this up, so here it is. Thanks for dropping by for a read :)
> 
> Disclaimer: Characters belong to the wonderful world of Disney, and the creators of Girl Meets World/Boy Meets World


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